Project Management for Mining, 2nd Edition


Book Description

Before You Put the First Shovel in the Ground—This Book Could Be the Difference Between a Successful Mining Operation and a Money Pit Opening a successful new mine is a vastly complex undertaking, entailing several years and millions to billions of dollars. In today’s world, when environmental and labor policies, regulatory compliance, and the impact of the community must be factored in, you cannot afford to make a mistake. The Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration has created this road map for you. Written by two hands-on, in-the-trenches mining project managers with decades of experience bringing some of the world’s most successful, profitable mines into operation on time, within budget, and ethically, Project Management for Mining gives you step-by-step instructions in every process you are likely to encounter. It is in use as course material in universities in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Ghana, Iran, Kazakhstan, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. In addition, more than 100 different mining companies have sent employees to attend seminars conducted by authors Robin Hickson and Terry Owen, sessions all based around the material within this book. In the years following the first edition, the authors gratefully received a bevy of excellent suggestions from some 2,000 readers in over 50 countries. This helpful reader feedback, coupled with written evaluations from the more than 400 seminar attendees, has been an unparalleled source of improvement for this new book. This second edition is a significant accomplishment that includes 5 new chapters, substantial updates to the original 34 chapters, and 56 new or updated figures, flowcharts, and checklists that every project manager can use.




Hardrock Mining on Federal Lands


Book Description

This book, the result of a congressionally mandated study, examines the adequacy of the regulatory framework for mining of hardrock mineralsâ€"such as gold, silver, copper, and uraniumâ€"on over 350 million acres of federal lands in the western United States. These lands are managed by two agenciesâ€"the Bureau of Land Management in the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. The committee concludes that the complex network of state and federal laws that regulate hardrock mining on federal lands is generally effective in providing environmental protection, but improvements are needed in the way the laws are implemented and some regulatory gaps need to be addressed. The book makes specific recommendations for improvement, including: The development of an enhanced information management system and a more efficient process to review new mining proposals and issue permits. Changes to regulations that would require all mining operations, other than "casual use" activities that negligibly disturb the environment, to provide financial assurances for eventual site cleanup. Changes to regulations that would require all mining and milling operations (other than casual use) to submit operating plans in advance.




Evolutionary and Revolutionary Technologies for Mining


Book Description

The Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT) of the U. S. Department of Energy commissioned the National Research Council (NRC) to undertake a study on required technologies for the Mining Industries of the Future Program to complement information provided to the program by the National Mining Association. Subsequently, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health also became a sponsor of this study, and the Statement of Task was expanded to include health and safety. The overall objectives of this study are: (a) to review available information on the U.S. mining industry; (b) to identify critical research and development needs related to the exploration, mining, and processing of coal, minerals, and metals; and (c) to examine the federal contribution to research and development in mining processes.







Revealing the Invisible Mine


Book Description

Exploring the social complexities of the Frieda River Project in Papua New Guinea, this book tells the story of local stakeholder strategies on the eve of industrial development, largely from the perspective of the Paiyamo – one of the project’s so-called ‘impact communities’. Engaging ideas of knowledge, belief and personhood, it explains how fifty years of encounters with exploration companies shaped the Paiyamo’s aspirations, made them revisit and re-examine their past, and develop new strategies to move towards a better, more prosperous future.




Coal Mining Equipment at Work


Book Description

Western Kentucky represented, in the time period covered by this book from the 1950s-80s, the bulk of coal mining in North America. Attributed to in John Prine’s famous song “Paradise,” Muhlenberg County is home to Kentucky's first commercial coal mine named the McLean Drift Bank. At one point, Muhlenberg County produced more coal than any county, state, or country as the largest producer of coal in the world. The massive mining machines documented herein show how this was possible through vintage and colorful photography. Production statistics are detailed for each piece of equipment, laced with historical facts and stories about the mines and mining companies that operated them. Includes a rare look at some of the old draglines that have been re-started and are digging in Western Kentucky once again thanks to new technology.







Mining North America


Book Description

"Over the past five hundred years, North Americans have increasingly turned to mining to produce many of their basic social and cultural objects. From cell phones to cars and roadways, metal pots to wall tile and even talcum powder, minerals products have become central to modern North American life. As this process has unfolded, mining has also indelibly shaped the natural world and North Americans' relationship with it. Mountains have been honeycombed, rivers poisoned, and forests leveled. The effects of these environmental transformations have fallen unevenly across North American societies. Mining North America examines these developments. Drawing on the work of scholars from Mexico, the United States, and Canada, this book explores how mining has shaped North America over the last half millennium. It covers an array of minerals and geographies while seeking to draw mining into the core debates that animate North American environmental history generally. Taken together, the authors' contributions make a powerful case for the centrality of mining in forging North American environments and societies"--Provided by publisher.







Planetary Mine


Book Description

A clarion call to rethink natural resource extraction beyond the extractive industries Planetary Mine rethinks the politics and territoriality of resource extraction, especially as the mining industry becomes reorganized in the form of logistical networks, and East Asian economies emerge as the new pivot of the capitalist world-system. Through an exploration of the ways in which mines in the Atacama Desert of Chile—the driest in the world—have become intermingled with an expanding constellation of megacities, ports, banks, and factories across East Asia, the book rethinks uneven geographical development in the era of supply chain capitalism. Arguing that extraction entails much more than the mere spatiality of mine shafts and pits, Planetary Mine points towards the expanding webs of infrastructure, of labor, of finance, and of struggle, that drive resource-based industries in the twenty-first century.